Confessions of Faith

Confessions of Faith, are statements of doctrine very similar to
Creeds, but usually longer and polemical, as well as didactic; they are
in the main, though not exclusively, associated with Protestantism; the
16th century produced many, including the Sixty-seven Articles of the
Swiss reformers, drawn up by Zwingli in 1523; the Augsburg Confession
of 1530, the work of Luther and Melanchthon, which marked the breach with
Rome; the Tetrapolitan Confession of the German Reformed Church, 1530;
the Gallican Confession, 1559; and the Belgic Confession of 1561. In
Britain the Scots Confession, drawn up by John Knox in 1560; the
Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England in 1562; the Irish
Articles in 1615; and the Westminster Confession of Faith in 1647;
this last, the work of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, has by its
force of language, logical statement, comprehensiveness, and dependence
on Scripture, commended itself to the Presbyterian Churches of all
English-speaking peoples, and is the most widely recognised Protestant
statement of doctrine; it has as yet been modified only by the United
Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which adopted a Declaratory Statement
regarding certain of its doctrines in 1879, and by the Free Church of
Scotland, which adopted a similar statement in 1890.